New Rules Make Facebook Promotions Drastically Easier
Facebook has loosened its restrictions on fan promotions. You can now use ‘Likes’ as votes and contest entries. Those annoying third party apps? No longer necessary. Let the giveaways begin!
Facebook no longer requires promotions to be administered through third party apps, a hugely frustrating burden on banks and credit unions trying build levels of fan engagement on Facebook.
Facebook is now allowing businesses to collect entries for contests and giveaways by having users ‘Like’ their page or update, post on their page, or leave a comment. For instance, ‘Likes’ can now be used as a voting mechanism in promotions, and marketers can now ask people to submit names of a new product in exchange for a chance to win a prize.
The fact that this wasn’t always the case may surprise some financial marketers. "Wait, what? There were rules? You mean you couldn’t give away prizes to people simply for liking your page?"
Nope.
Previously it was against Facebook’s promotion guidelines to run a promotion on a company page that involved any Facebook feature, including comments, ‘Likes,’ tagging, shares, etc. Up until last month, all promotions needed to be administered through party app. Facebook says it was primarily to keep business’ from buying ‘Likes‘ with incentives (aka, bribes). There’ was probably other forces at work driving the old third-party app rule. Presumably Facebook wanted to keep itself at arms length from the legal quagmire of sweepstakes-style promotions. (Facebook considers a "promotion" as any marketing-based initiative involving an entry/registration, an element of chance, and/or a giveaway or prize.)
Some rules and restrictions remain in place. Marketers are still prohibited from asking their Facebook users to ‘Like,’ share or post something on their personal timelines. Facebook also says it’s not okay to ask people tag themselves in pictures of a new product in exchange for a chance to win a prize. And promotions can only be administered from company pages.
You can read the complete updated terms of use for Facebook’s company pages here.
That Facebook prohibited many of the promotions financial marketers would intuitively want to run didn’t stop many from doing whatever they felt like any way.
"So many brands already use this approach for competitions," observes Leila Thabet, Managing Director, We Are Social US, New York. "It makes sense for Facebook to make this change."
Facebook’s announcement opens up a whole new world of opportunities for bank and credit union marketers.
"Something that has never been possible before is the idea of creating contests that require participation of your entire Facebook community to hit certain social milestones," points out Matthew Peneycad. "You could, for instance, reward every participant in a challenge to hit a certain number of comments, photo comments, or ‘Likes’ on a given post."
Another big change Facebook implemented: You can now notify winners through Facebook — something you couldn’t do before.
Now you might be thinking you’ll never want to use a third-party app to run one of your promotions ever again. But don’t dismiss the idea so quickly. While creating a promotion with a page may be faster and easier, building it within an app allows for a more personalized experience — something more easily branded. Apps provide more space and flexibility for content than page posts alone. And promotions run through apps can collect data in a secure, structured way that may be appealing to advertisers, particularly larger brands. If you want to collect usable marketing data — email address, for instance — an app is still the best way to go.
Financial marketers will also want to think about how they manage the terms and conditions of their promotions when deciding whether to build an app or host something right on the page directly.
"Apps still offer a far more advanced system than just using basic voting mechanisms, and manually collating entries just isn’t realistic for big campaigns where there’s a risk of making mistakes on validating entries," Thabet astutely observes.
The best promotions to host directly on your page without an app are those with a smaller scale. Trivia questions, photo caption contests and informal surveys are all good examples that would likely have more modest prizes — $10 to $100 gift cards at the iTunes store or Starbucks. This will surely benefit smaller, community-based financial institutions with limited resources — both money and muscle.
"If you have a small audience and want to offer a prize, it’s now super simple, post to your page that people may just post/message the page or like/comment a post of the page and tell them you’ll pick a winner among the ones who have done so," notes Emeric Ernoult, Founder and CEO of AgoraPulse.
Thabet adds that brands should benefit from the reduced costs of running a competition or promotion and "probably experience greater engagement, since News Feeds are where users have their primary focus."
Rob Kischuk, CEO & Founder of Badgy, says smart marketers will want a balanced approach. "By using apps and engagement for promotion entries, savvy marketers will gather email opt-ins, interest graph data, and now, sustained increased reach and revenue from their posts," he says.
No matter which route you go, Facebook wants your legal absolution. Every promotion must explicitly and completely release of Facebook of any responsibility, and must explain that any data harvested is being collected by you — the marketer — and not Facebook.
Facebook Pages Terms
Date of Revision: August 27, 2013
The following terms, as well as our Data Use Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, apply to all Pages on Facebook. Additionally, all content on Pages must comply with our Community Standards.
I. General
A. Only authorized representatives may administer a Page for a brand, entity (place or organization), or public figure.
B. Any user may create a Page to express support for or interest in a brand, entity (place or organization), or public figure, provided that it is not likely to be confused with an official Page or violate someone’s rights.
C. Content posted to a Page is public and viewable by everyone who can see the Page.
D. You are required to restrict access to Pages (through our gating functionality) as necessary to comply with applicable laws and Facebook policies, including our Advertising Guidelines and Community Standards.
E. You may not establish terms for your Page that conflict with our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Data Use Policy or these terms.
II. Page Management
A. Page Names and Facebook Web Addresses
Page names and Facebook Web Addresses must accurately reflect Page content. We may remove administrative rights or require you to change the Page name and Facebook Web Address for any Page that fails to meet this requirement.
Page names must:
i. not consist solely of generic terms (e.g., "beer" or "pizza");
ii. use proper, grammatically correct capitalization and may not include all capitals, except for acronyms;
iii. not include character symbols, such as excessive punctuation and trademark designations; and
iv. not include superfluous descriptions or unnecessary qualifiers.
B. Name Changes and Migrations
We will only process name changes and migrations that do not result in a misleading or unintended connection. For example, we will allow local to global migrations, such as "Facebook France" to "Facebook", but will not allow global to local migrations, or location to location migrations, such as "Facebook France" to "Facebook Russia". Additionally, you may not request a name change or migration that would result in re-categorizing a product Page to a brand Page, a generic or opinion Page to a brand Page, or a Group to a Page. All migrations are at our discretion and are final.
C. Collection of Data
If you collect content and information directly from users, you will make it clear that you (and not Facebook) are collecting it, and you will provide notice about and obtain user consent for your use of the content and information that you collect. Regardless of how you obtain content and information from users, you are responsible for securing all necessary permissions to reuse their content and information.
You will not collect users’ content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.
Any data you obtain from us must comply with Section II of our Facebook Platform Policies.
D. Tagging
You must not inaccurately tag content or encourage users to inaccurately tag content (ex: don’t encourage people to tag themselves in photos if they aren’t in the photo).
III. Page Features
A. Advertising on Pages
Ads and commercial content (including Page post content) are subject to the Advertising Guidelines.
Third-party advertisements on Pages are prohibited, without our prior permission.
B. Cover
All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines.
C. Applications on Pages
Apps on your Page must comply with the Facebook Platform Policies.
D. Offers
If you create an offer using Facebook’s offer creation tool, the following policies apply:
i. Facebook offers must be available for a limited time.
ii. You may only run an offer if you are the merchant for or the manufacturer of the product or service you are promoting.
iii. You must clearly and prominently disclose any restrictions on your offer (such as expiration date or limitations on redemption).
iv. You are solely responsible for improper redemption, fraud, disputes or other issues that arise from the distribution and/or redemption of your offer.
v. If your offer may be redeemed at a merchant not operated by you, it is your sole responsibility to communicate with the merchant and ensure they honor your offer.
vi. You must only use the offer creation tool for its intended functionality and not to promote your website or other contact information, or to offer the equivalent of a gift card, gift certificate or stored value card.
vii. You are responsible for ensuring that your offer complies with these terms and all applicable laws, rules and regulations. Offers are subject to many regulations (such as alcohol discounts and offers marketed to minors) and if you are not certain that your offer complies with applicable law, consult with an expert.
E. Promotions
1. If you use Facebook to communicate or administer a promotion (ex: a contest or sweepstakes), you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion, including:
a. The official rules;
b. Offer terms and eligibility requirements (ex: age and residency restrictions); and
c. Compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered (ex: registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals)
2. Promotions on Facebook must include the following:
a. A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant.
b. Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.
3. Promotions may be administered on Pages or within apps on Facebook. Personal Timelines must not be used to administer promotions (ex: "share on your Timeline to enter" or "share on your friend’s Timeline to get additional entries" is not permitted).
4. We will not assist you in the administration of your promotion, and you agree that if you use our service to administer your promotion, you do so at your own risk.
